If you think about big companies like Walmart or Target, you know that typically they can offer better prices to consumers than a small, local drugstore. Why is that? Simple. They’re big enough to get a better deal stocking and selling the product than the smaller competitors.

But in the case of tax resolution, the larger companies almost always cost more to their customers than the smaller companies. Why is that? Simple. Tax resolution is not scalable. It is a job that requires highly skilled service.

A large tax company needs to hire additional personnel in order to keep growing, but in order to have additional personnel, the tax company needs to get more office space, hire HR managers, get IT support, new hardware, and all other kinds of additional costs. It also requires more marketing efforts to obtain enough customers to keep all of their tax professionals busy.

These costs add up and the increases result in higher fees to taxpayers. Often times these fees are not obvious to the taxpayer. Fundamentally, tax resolution (as an industry) exists because a tax pro can save taxpayers enough money from the IRS that they can pay their salary with it too. But the bigger the tax company gets, the bigger the chunk of the cost savings pie the tax company wants to take from the taxpayer.

They use the bigger chunk of the pie to pay for all of those costs. This is a tricky dilemma for taxpayers – do I hire a big company that costs more but is at least big enough to have maintained a solid reputation? OR, do I hire a small company that will charge less but is too small to know how good their reputation is?

No taxpayer should have to face this dilemma, but it happens everyday and that’s why there’s a lot of room for scammers. Large tax companies scam taxpayers by charging more and small tax companies scam taxpayers by flying under the radar. There’s no single kind of threat the taxpayer faces so a lot of people don’t know what to look for.

The US Tax Review solves this problem. We have a scoured the country to find the best tax companies. We found a lot of smaller (well-priced) AND reliable (trustworthy) tax companies. We even rated companies based on their performance of actual tax resolution cases to prove that this type of company is better. And, we let taxpayers find a company from the ones we found for free.

If you’re new to something, like filing taxes, car buying, home repair, or stock trading – you probably shouldn’t attempt to be the expert all on your own. Often times you’ll miss out on important opportunities to get a better deal or save money over the long haul. For example, I bought a car that had a title from salvage not realizing that it would result in lots of little things being off about the vehicle like a semi-working cd player, a rattling trunk, and a rusted out muffler. They cost me more over in the long-term because in the process of buying the car, I tried to go it alone and be my own expert. By using myself as the expert to counterweight the facts the salesperson presented, I didn’t get all the facts that would help me make a smarter decision. It was a hard lesson learned that I need to get as much unbiased information as possible to be able to make a smart decision.

Even more importantly, you shouldn’t be afraid to ask for help. It’s pandemic of people in our country to perceive asking for help and advice as a sign of weakness. Really it’s just the opposite – those who don’t ask for help are actually hugely insecure. Fear is an emotion conducive to illogical thinking and the reality is that many people are afraid when they don’t know enough about something. For example, many of the taxpayers who use the US Tax Review have gotten a tax lien and reacted with fear. They then put off their responsibility of resolving their lien. The IRS does not accept this behavior, so they send a Tax Levy and proceed to garnish the taxpayer’s wages or seize their assets like a car or house. If taxpayers weren’t afraid of not knowing what to do next, they’d get on their computer or pick up their phone and talk to a person who is more knowledgeable. That person could prevent the much more painful tax levy from happening… So that’s the lesson learned, don’t be afraid to ask for help because it’s better than putting things off.

So, if this is you after you receive a Tax Lien or before you have to file your taxes, chances are you could benefit from getting help from a tax pro. Try finding someone reputable and seeing what kind of information they can provide for free. Be sure to check out their credibility through a consumer review site (like US Tax Review) and if everything looks good, consider hiring them.

Let us know if you have any valuable lessons learned about being in a situation that you’re new to!

Why monitoring the results of tax professionals is significantly more valuable to consumers than the Better Business Bureau or Angie’s List type services. USTaxReview.org monitors the results that taxpayers experience when dealing with their tax professionals. The process requires that the tax professional reports at the beginning of their cases critical information like, 1) Estimated fees they will charge 2) Estimates savings they expect to produce for the delinquent taxpayer 3) Other estimated fees This information is then again reported at the completion of the taxpayer’s case. USTax Review.org reports these findings in a database that taxpayers’s can access for free. The reason that this format is far superior to other reporting agencies is that, 1) All cases are reported, not just satisfied customers or just angry customers 2) Because the service is statistically trackable, it eliminates biased opinions The customers of Bernie Madoff and the now defunct Taxmasters, JK Harris and Roni Deutch, (all out of business nationwide tax companies) did not have access to the critical information that is imperative to make safe, smart, investment decisions. All data and 100% sampling makes USTaxReview.org the only dependable reporting agency.

Consider the hiring of a tax professional as a serious investment, much like hiring an Registered Investment Adviser. When investors get caught in ponzi schemes like the catastrophe that Bernie Madoff created, they end up losing most of their investment. How could this happen? We need to look at the source of the solicitation, typically word of mouth or referrals from friends that were seemingly making big gains. The problem was that the results were not verified and/or deception ran rampant. In other words, there was limited transparency. Similarly, when taxpayers hire a tax professional, they do not have access to dependable transparency. Both types of investors are extremely vulnerable. Consider that a taxpayer that owes $20k and pays a tax professional fees is under similar circumstances that stock investors face. A good outcome with a great tax professional can earn the taxpayer two, three, or more times the return on their investment. This again is similar to stock investing and professional advice quality. USTaxReview.org publishes the results that tax professionals produce for taxpayers. Both the tax pro and the taxpayer verify the results. This free service greatly reduces risk to taxpayers.

We are a startup company that is changing the way taxpayers find tax resolution professionals. USTR is the first and only consumer review site dedicated entirely to tax resolution. One of things that make us special and different from an Angie’s List or BBB is that we use data from actual case results to determine rankings for tax professionals.

This blog will feature posts that uncover the inner workings of how tax resolution works, including how some companies manipulate the system to swindle taxpayers, what a taxpayer should look for when hiring a tax pro, and what types of practices should raise a red flag for consumers.

We believe that consumers need to be able to understand their options and compare choices in an apples to apples way – not apples to oranges.

Our site and The Review (our tool to find and hire a quality, reliable tax pro), tackles one area that is fraught with subtle ripoffs and major scams – Tax Resolution.

We’ll be posting once a week for now and hope to see you share our content as well as join in on the conversation to share your experiences. Tune in next week when we relate the decision of hiring a tax pro to the decision of hiring an investment advisor!